Doctors won’t join strikes, NMA promises

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) yesterday said doctors would no longer abandon their duty posts during strikes.

Its President Dr Osahon Enabulele said the assocaition has put in place a surveillance to ensure strict compliance of doctors to the directive.

Enabulele, who addressed reporters during the association’s visit to the Health Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HEWAN), said doctors who default would be penalised.

He said the NMA would discourage strikes in the health sector, adding that the proposed strike by the Joint Health Workers’ Union should be stopped because the association is illegal and does not represent the interest of the workers.

The union leader berated the Federal Government for endorsing international treaties that it cannot meet, especially the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), because it was not ready.

Enabulele said: “Lack of adequate power supply, good roads and other infrastructure are factors that should be addressed before it (govt) can achieve any goal.

“But to be realistic, Nigeria cannot achieve it because it doesn’t have the same condusive environment and manpower like some developed countries. The country can have a projection of 2030, after it must have put in place necessary measures.”

The union leader recalled that Nigeria, at the Committee of African Heads of States meeting in Abuja in 2001, agreed in principle with other governments on the continent to devote 15 per cent of its budget to health care but only devotes about five per cent to it yearly.